


We are not what they made us to be

by Catherines_Collections



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Not Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie) Compliant, Not Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Compliant, Past Mind Control, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-22
Updated: 2016-07-22
Packaged: 2018-07-26 03:36:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,466
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7558588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Catherines_Collections/pseuds/Catherines_Collections
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first time he sees the soldier’s eyes he nearly laughs.</p>
            </blockquote>





	We are not what they made us to be

**Author's Note:**

> A small idea i had because i love how tragic these two are. I may come back and revise but please enjoy it for now:)!
> 
> I own none of this but please enjoy.

He has a problem with mirrors. He can’t face the reflection they show and the shade of eyes he might see. Too blue, his mind echoes. Too blue like ice and frozen hatered, filled with nothing more than the desire to please.

There are too many possibilities, fears, and tragedies running through his brain, making it impossible to focus on just one. All of them coming together in the worst of ways.

One day he may be able to face a mirror without shattering it. Today is not that day.

.

He knows what it feels like to be ripped from yourself, to have your mind twisted and body controlled by another with you still in it.

Memories will always haunt him; fill his dreams with terrors and unspeakable accidents until he wakes in damp sheets gasping for breath with a dead name on his lips. He will never forget the horrors just as he will never forget too blue eyes and the dark hair and smirk that accompany them.

He’s paranoid, racked with guilt and a possible death wish, but far too stubborn to admit it. 

He continues his job. Completes his missions and follow his orders. It feels so disgustingly familiar.

It’s different, he tells himself. It’s different.

There is no scepter this time, no crafty smirks, no golden capes or destructive glances, no gods.

It’s different, he rehearses in his head. It’s different it’s different it’s different.

It feels the same.

.

The first time he sees the soldier’s eyes he nearly laughs.

It’s a recovery mission and he is almost out the door when he runs into a shadow that send him sprawling unprepared to the ground.

The shadow is wearing black combat gear, high tech by the looks of it, and his hands are red. 

He looks up at the shadow man -about to call in a breach situation- and skims over light blue eyes. The air held in his chest disappears in one breath and his mouth seals itself up. Reduced to hysterics, he surmises; he would laugh if he had any air.

By the time he can even think about calling in the breach the mission has been compromised and the other man is gone.  
Natasha finds him destroying the room his mind had collapsed in. Chairs broken and wall paper pealing. 

She says nothing as Clint leaves the room. He says nothing in return.

.

The first time he hears of the Winter Soldier is through a rumor circulating in the crowd gathered at their circus. The city they had stopped at was full of military officials and other well-knows with their names in the paper daily. The morning of their first show there was word of an assassination and rumors of a man with a metal arm. Some around the assassinated only caught glimpses, the rumors went, a metal arm and a sniper rifle positioned from across the street.

They had packed up after the first show and headed to the next town over. No need to get caught up in private affairs, the Ring master had murmured as they packed into the train, it only makes things messy.

Messier, added Clint mentally as he boarded the train, things only get messier.

. 

“I could shoot you.” He threatens tilting his head to the side in thought, “I should shoot you.”

The bow in his hand does not falter, but his mind is screaming at him and frantically scanning for an escape. I’m not afraid, he chants, I’m not. But he is, and fear is real so he grasps onto it like a lifeline.

“You could.” Responds the soldier, his voice gruff and hoarse from what Clint assumes to be lack of use, “or we could make a deal.” The soldier’s gaze is dead, burnt out and blank. 

Clint knows he can’t beat this man. The Winter Soldier is unbeatable, the few with the displeasure to have met him and lived say. Clint’s death wish has gotten him this far and his filthy conscious has carried him the rest of the way, but there is nothing left to keep him going. He’s so tired, so smudged, so empty.

When he lays down his weapon it means much more than a simple surrender. 

The soldier watches him with hesitant but observant eyes. They hold no malice but he still can’t bring himself to look directly into them, so he shifts his gaze to right above the man’s shoulder instead. 

“What do you have in mind?”

.

The Winter Soldier is not a good man. Once, according to the files, he was. He was an upstanding American citizen who fought bravely and served his country greatly before dying in the line of duty.  


Loved, treasured and remembered, his gravestone stone reads. But it is not his. He is not the man the stone was meant for, he is not Bucky Barnes. The stone where old friends and family members came to cry was not meant for him. He is not the man who honored his country and its people with his service. He is not Bucky Barnes, the man who gave his life for his country. No, he is the man his country forgot. The man who never stops killing. He is not Bucky Barnes. Now he is the Winter Soldier. 

The Winter Soldier is not a good man, but it is others who made him like this.

Clint Barton is a good man. 

Clint Barton is a good man with a rough start, tough middle, and questionable end. 

Clint Barton is tired. Tired of being chewed up and spit out, of killings and endings and hands that never show the red they are drenched in. He is tired of weapons and faces and empty names. He is tired of being tired and of too blue eyes that always seem to find him. 

Clint Barton, many will say, is a good man.

Clint just wonders what it takes to make a man good.

.

“Do you remember?” Clint asks, the sun bearing down hotly on their small camp.

Silence fills the empty space around them. 

“What I need to.” Responds the soldier. Clint doesn’t have to ask what he means by that.

.

“I’m not dead.” states Clint, dazed and unfocused. 

“Not yet,” the soldier replies with a huff as he lifts Clint higher over his shoulder, “not yet.”

There is gunfire and shouting in the distance, but Clint can’t stay awake long enough to figure out why.

.

“Do you plan to get yourself killed?” the soldier asks. There is no judgment in his tone, only curiosity and a small sense of finality as if preparing himself for what the answer might bring.

“I don’t think so,” Clint replies, “I mean I’m not exactly planning it.” He continues to sharpen his arrows, and polish his bow as the soldier talks.

“But if the situation were to arise?” 

Clint stares at the ceiling above him, tracing its patterns with his eyes. “It depends. It all depends.”

The soldier is silent.

“I just,” hesitates Clint, hand frozen on the handle of his bow, “I really don’t know.”

The darkness around them absorbs their words and recites them through the wind.

.  
“What do you have in mind?” The archer asks, bow at his feet.

The soldier smiles, an expression Clint will come to know as rare, venomously. “How do you feel about revenge?”

The archer’s face remains blank, “I’d ask who for.”

“Make a list,” shrugs the soldier, “I'll add your's to mine. I think we’ll have enough time.”

He licks his lips, “and if I don’t?”

The soldier’s gaze sharpens, “I’d say you can’t stop me. But if you joined we could prevent many from our own fates.”

Clint’s heard Steve’s stories of Bucky Barnes, the man who fought for his friends and killed for his country. The man preserved in history books and war movies. One look at the soldier is all it takes to realize Bucky Barnes is dead. Bucky Barnes died when he fell from the train car door, and the Winter Soldier was born from his remains. 

The Winter Soldier is bitterness and anger, loss and isolation. The Winter Soldier knows what its like to have somebody else calling the shots in your mind. The Winter Soldier has eyes like ice and a soul to bare them with. The Winter Soldier knows.

He won't remember what encourages him to take the man's hand, but he will remember it as the best decision he's ever made.

.

“Your eyes are blue.” Clint remarks one day. He's hallucinating, with gunshots ringing in his head, and a smirk that refuses to leave his mind.

It’s either too early in the morning or too late at night.

“Are they?” asks the soldier. 

Clint laughs, but it’s nowhere near humorous.

.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Hope you enjoyed, and comments and kudos are much appreciated:)!


End file.
